The Climate Wars

The Climate Wars were a series of ancient military conflicts fought between the major powers of the mid 21st century over the resources of the Global South. Though many of the finer details of the conflict have been lost, it is broadly understood to have been a period of devastation throughout the world, severely weakening the great powers of the period, eventually allowing the peoples of the Global South to force a diplomatic end to the conflict. Despite nearly destroying humanity, the weakening of the nation-state allowed for an emergency unity government take over. The Climate Wars are therefore broadly considered to be the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Age of Unity.

Prelude

The ultimate cause of the Climate Wars was similar to many currently known ancient human conflicts, and indeed many of the insurrections of the Age of Unity. Ever increasing consumption, led the great powers of Old Earth to have an ever increasing need for the limited resources of Old Earth. This was exacerbated by the climate crisis of the 21st century, which resulted in widespread biome collapse, vast refugee crises, and the destabilization of many regions across the the globe. In the growing chaos, an ascendant superpower in the form of the People's Republic of China began to directly compete for global economic dominance with the slowly decaying American superpower, steadily growing weary with its international commitments in the era following the Second Great Human Civil War. A series of brushfire wars, a result of the anarchy in much of Africa, and West Asia erupted, with belligerents funded generously by the superpowers. These small scale proxy wars steadily grew in intensity throughout the 2030s and 2040s, even as new power blocs, such as a rapidly growing India, and a European Treaty Organization, now independent of American influence, started to enter the fray.

Though the delineation between these conflicts and the Climate Wars is somewhat fuzzy, current scholarship points to a few possible flashpoints that could have caused significant escalation. It is generally believed that a proxy conflict in the Western Pacific Ocean eventually escalated into open conflict between China and the United States. However due to loss of data, it is unknown whether this conflict was started over South China Sea islands, Taiwan, or Korea, as all of those flashpoints erupted in close succession to one another. However, by early 2050 it is known that the Climate Wars had begun.

Theaters

Pacific War

The first of the Climate Wars to start, and that which ran throughout the period, the Pacific war was fought across the Earth, and in its orbit. After the initial flashpoint, forces between the United States and China took place across the Western Pacific. An initial wave of air strikes and hypersonic missile barrages between the two superpowers devastated Taiwan, the Fujian Province of China, Central Korea, The Okinawa Prefecture, and several recently enhanced islands in the South China Sea. Once the great powers had fired much of their arsenal at each other, those offensive military formations which survived began to press across multiple fronts. As China seized Kinmen and launched an invasion of Taiwan, the United States and its allied forces invaded North Korea in an attempt to strike Manchuria. Both of these initial invasions were successful, a well planned operation by Chinese Marines and Airborne troops, their main opposition destroyed in the initial missile barrage, was able to seize control of most critical locations before a counter attack could be mounted. North Korea similarly folded quickly, nearly destroyed before Chinese troops could stabilize the situation. After these initial successes, the fronts bogged down into a quagmire.

Unlike in much of the rest of the Climate Wars, the more powerful global south nations present in the Southeast Asia region resulted in a greater level of diplomatic jockeying for influence and control. The initial balance of power favored the United States, who maintained several allies in the region, including most of the major powers. Over the course of the conflict, deft diplomacy, and a willingness to make humiliating concessions in the face of a difficult situation managed to swing the favor of many nations in Southeast Asia, culminating with the Sino-Pacific Friendship Association (Sinopac). The exact balance of power has been lost to the Great Cataclysm, but it is generally accepted that this swing allowed China to bring more force to bear in the north. However, this region was not without its fighting, as insurgencies in the Philippines intensified, and Malaysia suffered a military coup followed by civil war. After nearly ten years of fighting, with little progress, the Pacific War started to cool down, fading into the background as other regions themselves erupted into conflict, and distracting the superpowers. However, the war never officially came to an end, flaring up one last time, leading to a nuclear exchange before the end of the Climate Wars.

Central Asian Wars

Shortly after the start of the Pacific War, increased pressure on the water supply of Central Asia saw an outbreak in paramilitarism and violence in Uzbekistan, which eventually saw a military coup staged by forces seeking to seize the freshwater reserves in the Northern Aral Sea. Though the exact circumstances are subject to some amount of speculation, an Uzbek group or the Uzbeck military seized key dams to the North Aral Sea. The Kazakhs responded, triggering an escalation into a wider war spanning from Russian Western Siberia to Afghanistan. Though militaries of the various nations were involved, this was a war primarily fought between paramilitary organizations fighting each other as well as raiding population centers near the border. As the conflict continued, various militant groups came to be supported by all of the superpowers, but especially by India and China which jockeyed for control of the key transport corridor and resources in Central Asia.

Later on during this period, as pro-American, and pro-European factions were whittled away, the various brush wars congealed into a central conflict between the Central Asian wing of Sinopac (with with the remains of the Uzbek government at the time serving as the main power), and Indian backed groups with Kazakhstan being the largest of these. The biggest shift however, came with Pakistan's participation in the conflict, supporting Sinopac aligned forces, as well as pressing its claims on Kashmir. Shortly after, a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan crippled India's capacity to support its preferred factions, a similar exchange between China and the United States, cut the resources for Sinopac forces. The rise of the Unity Movement finally brought an end to conflict in the region.

East African War

The East African War was initially a relatively simple matter. A dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the damming of the Nile River escalated, first into a proxy war over the Sudan, and later into open warfare between the two states. As tensions flared, more nations were drawn into the conflagration, and pre-existing ethnic tensions resulted in more civil wars breaking out in the region. The East African War, as the conflict eventually came to be known was one of the most devastating theaters of the wider Climate Wars. Inter-ethnic conflict was a major feature with subnational ethnic entities taking different sides in the conflict and the world's great powers funding groups amenable to their cause.

Overall, the initial burst of inter-ethnic violence was more detrimental to Ethiopia than to Egypt, but the Ethiopian military proved incredibly successful at crushing these ethnic militant groups. Additionally, the military support of China saw Ethiopia rapidly improve its technological capabilities. As Egypt's earlier military advantage started to degrade, it was eventually forced to sue for an unfavorable peace, bringing the East African War to an end relatively early. With the early, if unsteady peace, Ethiopia was able to weld together friendly governments it had installed into an East African Federation that went on to form the nucleus of the Unification Movement in the later years of the Climate Wars.